State Warned on Race to Top

By

Lisa Fleisher

January 10, 2012

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan warned New York state on Monday to deliver its promise to overhaul teacher evaluations and develop a comprehensive student data-tracking system or risk losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants.

In their first annual check-in after awarding New York $700 million through the Race to the Top initiative, federal officials said the state can't abandon the pledges it made to secure the money, even if they get derailed by battles with teacher unions.

"We are only interested in supporting real courage and bold leadership," Mr. Duncan said in a statement. "Backtracking on reform commitments could cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars for improving New York schools."

Race to the Top, President Barack Obama's signature education initiative, offered $4.3 billion to states that promised to transform their education systems. Eleven states and the District of Columbia won the competition, but all of them have since postponed or scaled back their plans.

New York is one of three states called out by the Department of Education for lagging behind. But the state isn't under as much scrutiny as Hawaii, which is now required to get federal approval before spending any of the $75 million it won. Florida has also been criticized.

In New York, federal officials said delays in the evaluation and tracking systems—which were supposed to be at least partially completed in the first year of the four-year plan—have a domino effect: For example, the state planned to award $40 million in the second and third years to improve schools with students at risk of dropping out, but those schools must have new teacher evaluation systems in place first.

New York State Education Commissioner John King said the state had made progress in several areas, including introducing new curriculum standards. But he acknowledged criticism of areas where progress had stalled. "It's disappointing but not discouraging," Mr. King said. "We have to get this done, and we will...Our students are counting on us. They need us to get this right."

A big roadblock for New York has been its pledge to revamp the way it grades teachers by incorporating student performance on state standardized tests.

A law passed in May 2010 required the new teacher evaluations to be in place for all grades by the end of the 2012-13 school year. But it didn't supersede local union contracts, and teachers unions must agree to the new evaluations. Last week, in his State of the State address, Gov. Andrew Cuomo branded the law a failure.

Problems with implementing New York's Race to the Top reforms first emerged in June when the New York State United Teachers, which represents the state's 220,000 classroom teachers, sued over regulations that said as much as 40% of a teacher's evaluation could be based on student scores on state tests.

A judge agreed the law allowed only up to 20% of evaluations to be based on state tests. The state is appealing that decision.

New York City and its teachers union tried to reach an agreement over evaluations at several dozen troubled schools that had been in line for nearly $60 million in federal grants. But talks fell apart when the two sides couldn't agree to an appeals process for teachers who disagreed with their assessments.

The state, which administers the federal grant, pulled the money from New York City and nine other school districts for failing to meet a year-end deadline.

Standing on the steps of the state Education Department in Albany on Monday, NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi said the union wouldn't agree to an evaluation system not backed up by research, which, he said, doesn't yet exist.

"How long will it take to do it right?" he said, flanked by officials from other districts that had been up for improvement grants. "The answer is: Do it right."

The Obama administration also said it was concerned because New York's plan to implement a system that tracks detailed student data statewide has been delayed.

The state's contract with education technology company Wireless Generation was canceled over the summer by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli due to concerns related to its parent company, News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal. Parent advocacy groups and unions argued that News Corp. couldn't be trusted with student data in the wake of a phone-hacking scandal involving the company's British newspapers.

The state is close to getting new bids for that project but said the contract cancellation left it a year behind.

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